Tools for Effective Use of Geological Map Data: A Topic for GeoComputation Research?

Data models are essential for the effective capture, analysis and distribution of geological maps and supporting data. Existing and currently proposed data models need to be critiqued and improved, to increase their acceptability by the geoscientific community. Research on methods to generalize geological maps is needed. Integration of geological map data with other map layers often requires transformation of attributes of one set of spatial objects to another set. A systematic review of such methods would be useful. In order to represent geological knowledge, particularly in studies involving multi-criteria decisions, guidelines for constructing fuzzy membership and Dempster-Shafer belief functions are required. The Internet has made a great impact on the distribution of geoscientific data. Software already available for dynamic handling of spatial data on the Web must be extended for dealing with the specific problems of geological data.